Bedford Falls is the fictional town in which Philip Van Doren Stern's 1943 short booklet The Greatest Gift, and RKO Pictures 1946 film adaptation It's a Wonderful Life, are set.

[5] There is also a drug store (Gower's Drugs), a toy shop, a meat market, a newspaper office (the Bedford Falls Sentinel), a tailor's shop, a bicycle shop, a garage, a bowling alley and pool house, a hotel, a grocery, two cafés (including the Tiptop Café), a bonds store, a gas company, a telephone exchange, a police station and a building and loan (Bailey Brothers) that George (James Stewart) ends up running with his Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) after George's father dies.

One house belongs to Peter (Samuel S. Hinds) and Ma Bailey (Beulah Bondi) and is where George and his younger brother, Harry, grew up as kids.

Many other residents live up Bridge Street including the man who owns the tree George drives his car into when drunk.

The toll bridge on the outskirts of the town is the location where George thinks about committing suicide but is saved by guardian angel Clarence Odbody.

In one shot of the toll-house, you can see many lit-up houses over the hills in the countryside, showing that the little town of Bedford Falls does actually spread out quite a bit.

The location was used only once in the film when Harry (Todd Karns) comes back from university with his wife Ruth Dakin (Virginia Patton) as George and Uncle Billy were waiting there.

[10] While waiting there George says to Uncle Billy that a train whistle is one of the three most exciting sounds in the world, along with anchor chains and plane motors.

Many residents, including the Martini family (William Edmunds and Argentina Brunetti) are able to move out of Potter's Field to Bailey Park with the help of the Building and Loan.

The local teenagers made a game of throwing rocks at the Old Granville House, and if they broke a window they could make a wish.

The film was shot at RKO Radio Pictures Studio in Culver City, California, and the 89 acre RKO movie ranch in Encino,[15] where "Bedford Falls" consisted of Art Director Max Ree's Oscar-winning sets originally designed for the 1931 epic film Cimarron that covered four acres (1.6 ha), assembled from three separate parts, with a main street stretching 300 yards (three city blocks), with 75 stores and buildings, and a residential neighborhood.

[17] Pigeons, cats, and dogs were allowed to roam the mammoth set in order to give the "town" a lived-in feel.

[20] Since mid-December 2015 the small Scottish village of Birgham has been unofficially twinned with Bedford Falls, even having their road signs amended to include the reference.